


almost taken (not now, not ever)

by astralscrivener



Series: vld fic requests [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Keith/Lance (Voltron), Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Future Fic, M/M, Sleepy Boys, That's it, They've been in space for like 4 years now, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, fic request, this is mostly just them being soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 10:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13339704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: The ocean—it’s always the ocean with him, and Lance will swear up and down that Keith always smells of woodsmoke and fire. One cancels the other, keeps them in check, drags them back when they get too close to the edge.Keith reflects on how far he and Lance have come, and how they've gotten there.fic request for instagram user kylienelson11: soft + klance





	almost taken (not now, not ever)

**Author's Note:**

> fic request for instagram user **kylienelson11** : soft + klance
> 
> it's just them being soft with each other, i don't know what else to tell you
> 
> (also part of this is most definitely inspired by will and elizabeth's wedding in potc3 bc i have no shame)
> 
> have fun

**.:soft:.**

            Keith wakes before Lance does.

            The ceiling light buzzes dully overhead, and Keith relaxes when he realizes that for the first time in a while, he’s woken from a restful sleep all on his own. No nightmares that have him waking up shaking or in tears. No alarm blaring and forcing the Paladins into action. That must be why Lance doesn’t stir when Keith does—he’s completely wiped out from the series of missions they’ve been on this week, facing relentless attacks by the Galra and allies.

            Keith sits up slowly, detaching himself from Lance, whose back he’s apparently been clinging onto all night. He glances down at Lance. His face is smushed sideways into a pillow he clutches tightly. During the night, the blankets around them somehow slipped down, leaving Lance’s bare back exposed to Keith. He frowns at it, at the mess of scarred tissue it became what feels like a lifetime ago, when this whole _saving the universe_ gig began. He knows these faint lines and patterns like the back of his hand, has spent countless nights pressed against this old injury, has studied it more times than he can recall.

            Keith brushes featherlight fingers along the scarring, committing it to memory, over and over again.

            They’ve faced worse situations in the four years since they’ve become Paladins, Keith and Lance and the rest of the team. They’ve faced bigger bombs and more dangerous hostage situations, faced trap after trap, fought battles that came down to the wire, but this was always one of the worst to Keith. Still is. They were young, inexperienced, still new to this whole thing, and it was then that Lance could have been ripped from their lives forever, before they ever would’ve realized how important he is.

            Back then, they didn’t know what they were in for.

            No time to prepare, no knowing whether or not a simple parting would be the last. No realizing that a simple parting _could_ be their last.

            Keith swallows the lump building in his throat and lies back down, and buries his face in Lance’s neck, breathing in the early-morning scent of him. The ocean—it’s always the ocean with him, and Lance will swear up and down that Keith always smells of woodsmoke and fire. One cancels the other, keeps them in check, drags them back when they get too close to the edge. Keith shudders, and wonders where he’d be if Lance had been lost that day. If he’d even be here at all.

            “We’re okay.”

            Keith lifts his head slightly, as Lance shifts against him. Lance’s voice is still thick with sleep, and Keith’s not sure if he’s actually awake at all. But then Lance rolls over, and though his eyes are still half-lidded, Keith knows he’s fully alert. Lance smiles faintly at him and takes Keith’s left hand, and presses the backs of his fingers to his lips.

            Keith’s heart stammers in his chest, and threatens to break free entirely when Lance presses a separate kiss of its own against the band on Keith’s ring finger.

            Lance wears a matching one in the same place. The insides are engraved with their initials, _KK+LM_ , while the outside of the band is inlaid with blue and red gems, little sapphires and rubies that Coran, by nothing short of a miracle, managed to find in the Space Mall for a bargain.

            Keith and Lance have worn these rings for just over a year now, and have been married for slightly longer. Keith remembers the day, the desperate call for Coran to marry them in the middle of a battle they weren’t sure they would make it out of alive. Coran hadn’t even been on the battlefield—Keith and Lance were officially wedded over the comms between the Paladins and the castle, all while fighter ships were blasted out of the sky, and Keith and Lance took down the sentries and soldiers closing in.

            Lance laces their fingers together, bringing Keith back into the world of consciousness.

            “What’re you up to, Samurai?” Lance asks, eyes soft. “I know that look.”

            “Nothing,” Keith answers. “Just…reflecting.”

            “On what?”

            Lance waits, genuinely interested in whatever Keith’s got to say, and the words lodge themselves in Keith’s throat. He squeezes Lance’s hand out of habit, and Lance knows, when Keith’s grip turns crushing, that it’s not a good reflection. He sits up, bringing Keith along with him, and pulls Keith against him.

            They slot together like puzzle pieces, every curve of the other’s body, each movement the other makes memorized. Their fingers fall apart in favor of wrapping around the other—Lance has his arms around Keith’s waist, gently tugging Keith into his lap, while Keith loosely drapes his arms around Lance’s neck. Their foreheads fall against each other, and noses brush.

            “Us,” Keith murmurs, meeting Lance’s gaze. “How we got here. How we almost didn’t.”

            “Don’t think like that,” Lance responds, running fingers slowly up and down Keith’s spine. “That’s all behind us.”

            He leans forward and kisses Keith, soft and slow. Keith reciprocates in the same way, hands reaching up and getting lost in the messy, light curls of Lance’s hair as he cups the back of Lance’s head. Lance leans back and falls against the pillows, and Keith follows him down, lips never parting. From there, their kiss grows hungrier and more desperate, and an ache surges up in Keith’s chest.

            “Lance,” Keith breathes, pulling away only slightly. Lance lightly kisses him again, and again, and Keith shuts his eyes and basks in this moment.

            “I love you,” Lance whispers between one kiss and another.

            _A shot zips far too close to Lance_ _’s head, and Keith barely deflects it, while Lance ducks underneath Keith’s sword and squeezes off another three shots before his angle is blocked, and he has to move again._

 _Another shot misses Keith_ _’s heart and grazes his side, and Lance can’t end the life of the offending soldier quickly enough._

“I love you.” Again, and Lance moves from Keith’s lips to his cheeks.

            _“Fuck!”_

 _Lance stumbles as a shot hits home just above his knee and shatters the bottom portion of his thigh armor. Keith surges forward at the same time a soldier does, and his blade comes away messy, drenched in blood. Keith doesn_ _’t bat an eye._

“I love you.” His nose.

            _“How many of them_ are there? _” Keith shouts desperately, into the comms, and he blanches when Pidge lists off numbers, and warns of another wave headed their way._

 _He steals a glance at the Paladin next to him; Lance_ _’s face is wan, the hopelessness of the situation dawning on him._

            “I love you.” Eyelids.

            _The moment fractures, as Lance comes back to his senses and plunges back into the battle, but it won_ _’t let go of Keith. Panic twines around him, heavy and cloying and threatening to take over each of his senses._

_“Coran,” Keith chokes out, and engages another soldier in a short-lived duel. “You can officiate marriages, right?”_

_Lance whips around._

_“K-Keith, what are you doing?”_

            “I love you.” His jaw. His neck. All the way down the jagged scar that cuts across Keith’s shoulder and down to his pec.

            _Coran_ _’s voice crackles over the comms, shouting over the sounds of the castleship’s defenses firing off at once._ “Yes, I can!”

 _“Then_ marry us! _”_

_“Keith—”_

Lance draws back and lifts a hand to Keith’s face, pushing his bangs back, tucking loose strands of hair behind his ear. Keith watches him, as Lance takes in the features of his face.

 _Keith grunts as three soldiers try converging on him, and one precise swing brings down two of them at once, and injures the third enough for Keith to move. He backs up, until he_ _’s against Lance, and even through their armor and quick movements, he can feel the tension in Lance’s body._

_“I’m not dying before we get to be husbands!” Keith bites out. “I love you, dammit! I’m not letting the Galra take this!”_

            “I love you too,” Keith responds, finally, and studies Lance the way Lance studies him.

            _“Do we at least know who’s taking whose last name?” Lance has the audacity to ask, and earns a bitter laugh from Keith._

_“If we survive this,” Keith says, “then we’ll figure it out. Now are you gonna marry me, or what?”_

The slope of Lance’s nose. The curve of his mouth. The faint dusting of freckles across his cheeks. The blue of his eyes, and every last eyelash.

            _Coran screams half of the rite, but to his credit, never misses a beat, not even when Keith is certain the castleship rocks violently enough to send him to the ground. Meanwhile, Keith cuts down every enemy that gets in their close range, while Lance shoots those further away, before they can advance any further._

 _When Coran announces that they_ _’re husbands, for now and forever, till death do them part, Lance swoops in, lifts his helmet and lifts Keith’s, and presses their mouths together hard, before shoving away and diving right back into battle._

 _They spend another hour, at least, on the ground, before they_ _’ve finished off the last of the approaching enemies, and promptly collapse into each others’ arms right then and there, and give each other the proper kisses they deserve._

_“I love you.” They say it at the same time, and grins split their faces as they both burst out laughing and crying at the same time._

“D’y’think maybe we should get moving?” Lance asks. “Make sure we don’t miss breakfast?”

            “Maybe,” Keith answers, “but you’re so warm.”

            He lets his head drop, into the curve of Lance’s neck, and Lance pulls him in closer.

            “So we’re skipping breakfast, then?”

            Keith nods, and he can practically hear the smile in Lance’s responding sigh. “What am I gonna do with you?”

            “Cherish me forever,” Keith mutters with a grin, one Lance can’t see but can probably feel against his skin.

            “Mmm, I don’t know about that,” Lance replies. “First you steal the first kiss, then the proposal, then the wedding planning, and then my freaking _last name_ , and now you dictate whether or not we eat breakfast. _Honestly_ , Keith.”

            Keith flushes and snuggles closer into Lance. Lance clutches him, one hand rubbing lazy circles into his back.

            “Excuse me,” Keith mutters, already feeling the threads of sleep weaving their pattern through his consciousness once more, “the last name was a _gift._ You _gave_ it to me, no stealing involved.”

            Lance yawns. “Did I?”

            “Mmm. You did.”

            Lance reaches a free hand down and tugs the blanket back up the bed, over himself and Keith. Once it’s in place, Keith seeks out Lance’s hand, and intertwines their fingers.

            “Besides,” Keith goes on, voice quieter. “You get free reign of the wedding when we get back to Earth.”

            The phrasing always changes, flipping between _if_ and _when._ The bomb, the battlefield—those were _if_ s and they were slim _if_ s at that. But then there are moments like these, where it seems all is right with the world, where it feels as though, at each others’ side, they can accomplish anything, when it’s a _when._

            “Please, we all know my mother’s going to be the one in charge,” Lance replies.

            “Can’t wait to meet her,” Keith whispers. “Y’think she’ll like me?”

            Lance leans his head over and kisses Keith’s temple.

            “Yeah,” he murmurs in Keith’s hair. “She’s gonna love you. But not as much as I do.”

            “Not as much as _I_ love _you_ ,” Keith mumbles.

            Those are the last words spoken between them, and silence takes back over. Before long, Keith snores lightly in Lance’s ear, and Lance follows soon after.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this instead of sleeping and also while ignoring piles of calc homework, time to do calc and continue to not sleep
> 
> idk when the next fic request is coming but it's probably gonna be another klance one :P byeee


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